A senior judge at the United Nations’ International Court in The Hague has resigned in protest of “shocking” interference from the Trump administration into a preliminary war-crimes investigation into U.S. troops.

The judge, Christoph Flügge, who hails from Germany, slammed National Security Advisor John Bolton over his response last year to a preliminary investigation into American soldiers accused of torturing people in Afghanistan. That investigation ultimately found “a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity” were committed by U.S. forces, MintPress News reported.

“The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court,” Bolton said in September. He also called for sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC) and warned the body against pursuing any investigations into “Israel or other U.S. allies.”

Bolton even cited a Palestinian-led effort to bring Israel to the ICC over its human-rights abuses in Gaza and the West Bank as a reason for closing the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) office in Washington.

He went on to promise to ban ICC “judges and prosecutors from entering the United States,” adding:

We will sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system, and we will prosecute them in the U.S. criminal system. We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC. We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us.”

“John Bolton, the national security adviser to the U.S. president, held a speech last September in which he wished death on the International Criminal Court,” Flügge said after leaving his post. Flugge continued on Bolton’s declaration:

If these judges ever interfere in the domestic concerns of the U.S. or investigate an American citizen, [Bolton] said the American government would do all it could to ensure that these judges would no longer be allowed to travel to the United States – and that they would perhaps even be criminally prosecuted.”

The American security adviser held his speech at a time when The Hague was planning preliminary investigations into American soldiers who had been accused of torturing people in Afghanistan. The American threats against international judges clearly show the new political climate. It is shocking. I had never heard such a threat.

It is consistent with the new American line: ‘We are No 1 and we stand above the law.’”

How does the world stand by and allow the US and Israel to behave illegally and continue to occupy countries all over the world? The UN is already hamstrung by the Anglo American group and now the ICC is being threatened for doing it's job, what next? Just how far will they both go before the rest of the west walks away?

Venezuela plot thickens… UN should be probing Washington and allies for regime-change crimes

The convening of the UN Security Council at the weekend was – not for the first time – a blatant attempt by the US to use the body as an instrument to achieve geopolitical goals. The repeated vilification of the Venezuelan government of Nicolas Maduro – and the elevation of his political opponents – sounded like a choir orchestrated by Washington, remarked Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Australia, as well as several rightwing Latin American governments have harped on the same talking points issued by the US: Maduro is “illegitimate”, a “usurper”; the opposition leader Juan Guaido is the authentic president, even though Maduro won with an overwhelming majority in last year’s election.

The European Union has demanded that President Maduro calls new elections within eight days, or face reprisals from the bloc, presumably involving economic and diplomatic sanctions. The arbitrary and unreasonable nature of the EU ultimatum suggests it is designed to be impossible for Maduro to fulfill, thereby giving a pretext for sanctioning Caracas.